Truth in Pricing-Should be a law

Quote: Evenbob

I saw a black family unloading luggage from
the shuttle bus at the car rental. There was
mom and dad and boy and girl teens. They
each had 5 bags, I was open mouthed with
wonder. Two huge suitcases each, and three
smaller ones each. For 5 days in Vegas. I
heard them say they had a car for 5 days. The
luggage fee's for 20 bags have been amazing.

Oriental females are the worst for this, but somehow they pack it all into one bag. Right after 9/11 they had enhanced searches of even checked bags and these two women had their bags being checked. One burst upon closing, she was demanding it be paid for but security told her the bag was over packed.

Quote: AZDuffman

Oriental females are the worst for this, .

I don't know many black people personally.
In Calif, there was a black couple that came
into the bar every day, I got to know them
quite well. They were middle aged and had
a 3 bedroom house and no kids.

Every closet in every bedroom was jammed
with clothes. All the bedrooms had hat boxes
and shoe boxes stacked 5' high. There were
dept store clothes racks in all the bedrooms
crammed with new clothes, most in the orig
wrappers, never worn. Most of the clothes
and hats and shoes had never been worn.

I was stunned and have never gotten over it.
I've noticed since that day that minorities really
like to wear lots of different outfits. I don't
know why. I'm the opposite, I'm like Jay
Leno. When he's not working he wears jeans
and a work shirt every day. Clothes bore the
crap out of me.

Quote: DRich

I don't know if Allegiant does this, but Spirit waives the approximately $24 fee if you buy the ticket in person at the ticket counter. I just went to the airport to buy some because I was buying 5 tickets and that was a big enough savings to make it worthwhile.

I think I figured out how Allegiant does it. They will waive the $20-$30 fee if you buy at one of their ticket offices. But Allegiant has a business model where they don't permit connecting flights. So all their flights are from small airports to certain vacation destinations (primarily Las Vegas and Orlando). They only sell tickets at the airports where the overwhelming majority of their customers are flying as a destination. Effectively it is impossible for most people to avoid the fee.

1. Las Vegas, NV (LAS)
2. Orlando / Sanford, FL (SFB)
3. Bellingham, WA (BLI)
4. Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL)
5. Phoenix / Mesa, AZ (IWA)
6. Fort Myers / Punta Gorda, FL (PGD)
7. San Francisco / Oakland, CA (OAK)
8. Tampa / St. Petersburg, FL (PIE)
9. Kansas City, MO (MCI)
10. Oklahoma City, OK (OKC)
11. San Antonio, TX (SAT)

I get the point. They want you to book your flight on an internet engine, and board the plane without interacting with any employees until you actually board the plane and someone scans your boarding pass.

It isn't such a terrible goal to cut costs. I just wish they could put a positive spin on it, instead of this irritating collection of fees.

Quote: Evenbob

I don't know many black people personally.
In Calif, there was a black couple that came
into the bar every day, I got to know them
quite well. They were middle aged and had
a 3 bedroom house and no kids.

I was stunned and have never gotten over it.
I've noticed since that day that minorities really
like to wear lots of different outfits. I don't
know why. I'm the opposite, I'm like Jay
Leno. When he's not working he wears jeans
and a work shirt every day. Clothes bore the
crap out of me.

In my experience blacks are far more consumer oriented than whites are. As a PCO I went into many houses. Blacks were far more likely to have a less-nice house but have it filed to the brim with every kind of all of the latest electronics and other consumer items. At the tax prep job they would pay a fortune in APR to get their money the next day. Once I saw an APR >1000% on the Truth-In-Lending statement and the girl still wanted it. When they were there the talk was often of going to the Rent-A-Center place to get furniture which they hopefully kept until late summer.

Meanwhile when you went to white homes you saw the opposite. People with no furniture in the home, but home in the nicest ZIP code in town. Both sides were eye-opening.

It's the airline equivalent of the resort fee.

Quote: AZDuffman

Meanwhile when you went to white homes you saw the opposite. People with no furniture in the home, but home in the nicest ZIP code in town. Both sides were eye-opening.

It might be a poverty thing rather than
a race thing. I remember reading that
Loretta Lynn never got used to being
rich. She would shop for an electric
frying pan and buy 3 of them, for
when she was poor again. She would
buy 2 outfits exactly the same. 3 pairs
of the same shoes, 2 TV sets, on and on.

It was from a constant fear of having to
do without, so accumulate today what
you can't afford tomorrow. For me, I
own very little that I don't use. If I'm
not going to use it on a regular basis,
I don't want it.

Quote: Pacomartin

\Failure to print boarding pass at home would cost another $10.

Allegiant has a free phone app that you can use instead of a printed boarding pass.

Quote: DRich

Allegiant has a free phone app that you can use instead of a printed boarding pass.

Aeromexico has an app that doe this. I used it the last time I flew them. it worked perfectly well, but at the gate the agent took my phone, went to her desk, and came back with a printed boarding pass. She didn't explain why she did this.

If this happened at Allegiant, or if their scanner malfunctioned, would they charge the fee for printing the boarding pass?

Quote: Nareed

If this happened at Allegiant, or if their scanner malfunctioned, would they charge the fee for printing the boarding pass?

The boarding pass printing fee of $5 is less than two months old, so I don't know if they have all the bugs worked out. If you don't want to use the phone app, you can print it at home. But some people don't have printers, and if you are in a hotel they sometimes charge a lot to print a boarding pass. In any case, I would take a paper back up to your phone app.

The "electronic carrier usage" fee is $13 each segment. This can only be avoided by paying in person in Florida or Las Vegas or most of their destinations. As 90% of the flyers have those airports as destinations,so they are SOL. There is an additional $15 per segment charge if you have to call them to make a reservation. I think it is "additional", but it might be "instead of".

The carry on luggage fee of $15 per segment is unique to Allegiant and Sprint. Allegiant's checked bag policy is $20 per segment if you pay when you book.

Allegiant slipped a gotcha (that I understand American and Delta have done also). They changed the requirement so that it is maximum 22" including wheels and handle. Most of the bags were designed at 22" with wheels and handle extra. So standard bags that people have been using for decades no longer qualify. If you carry on luggage is disallowed at the airport it must be checked with a $50 penalty (possibly less the $15 you originally paid). One blogger complained that almost a third of the passengers on his American flight had their carry on bags taken away when they changed the rule.

On a major airline if you take a carry on and check a bag you only pay for the checked bag. On Allegiant you pay for both. If taking only one bag, you might as well check it, as it is only $5 more each way, and the allowance is 80" (length+width+height) instead of 45".

Use a debit card instead of a credit card if you have one. That fee is a percentage of the ticket but is maxed out at $8 per segment.

The trip flexibility insurance is about 18.67% of what you are reimbursed if you make a change. The "change fee" for all airlines is now ridiculous. It is $150 for the round trip ticket on Allegiant, but is $200 on major airlines like Delta. Considering that Allegiant tickets are usually cheaper, if you have to make a change you might as well throw away your ticket. Keep in mind that "changes" include changes in travel date and time, not just changes in destinations.

Luggage.

Remember Nellie Bly of the NY Sun? She did ten days undercover in a NYCity aslyum for the insane: water, ice baths, restraints, etc.

She later did an actual trip around the world in 70 days, paid for by her paper. See the luggage she carried for all climates and continents. Now that is the way to travel light!

As for Vegas clothes, I admire that serviceman who hit a humungous slot machine payoff... and went to a thrift store to buy a better wardrobe.

Some people keep their priorities straight when the lights flash and bells go off and the Shift Supervisor shows up with a bottle of champagne and a blonde in tow.